Poems Dedicated to Keki Daruwalla
By Sudeep Sen
Chasing the Blues: A Lexicon
Can you possibly capture the sky or sea’s expanse?
Even when a lens’ vision articulates a specific frame,
it is merely a part of a larger canvas — its perimeter
constrained by the aspect-ratio of its composition.
How do you chase our outer and inner blues —
its jazz-like improvisations, our bipolar vicissitudes?
I maybe dizzy in inter-bleeding shades — azure, cobalt,
sapphire, cerulean, navy, saxe, ultramarine, lapis lazuli,
indigo, aquamarine, turquoise, teal, cyan. Or am I lost
in her moods — down, melancholy, sorrowful, gloomy,
dejected, downhearted, despondent, dispirited, dismal,
heavy-hearted, glum, morose, downcast, tearful? Or is it
Rabelaisian, ribald, explicit, indecent, dirty, obscene,
rude, bawdy, lewd, racy, risqué, salacious, naughty,
wicked, smutty, spicy, raw, pornographic, offensive,
prurient, profane; erotic, arousing, sexy, suggestive,
titillating, explicit? Window-panes’ coarse marine blue
dissolves with wall’s smoothness, as does gendered love.
Poems Dedicated to Keki Daruwalla
By Sudeep Sen
BIRDSONG
A bluebird from far away
visits me, soft perching on
my broad shoulders. It lands,
I barely realize its presence.
Her heartbeat matches mine,
we breathe in unison.
Our broken wings repair
temporarily at our contact —
dreaming of impossible flights
of escape, creating anew.
Elation is transient, warm until
our feathers share their heat.
Our common song connects
our frayed, flawed hearts —
its lyrics sometimes a dirge,
other times a joyous aria.
Sudeep Sen [www.sudeepsen.org] is a leading international poet whose prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Penguin), Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms (Bloomsbury), Anthropocene (Pippa Rann, Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize). Red and Rock completes ‘The Eco Trilogy’. Edited landmark anthologies include: The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahitya Akademi), and Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians (Pippa Rann). Blue Nude: Ekphrasis & New Poems (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize), Rock, and The Whispering Anklets are forthcoming. His photography represented by ArtMbassy, Rome/Berlin [http://www.artmbassy.com/artists.html], is part of private/public collections. The Government of India awarded him the senior fellowship for “outstanding persons in the field of culture/literature.” Sen is the first Asian honoured to deliver the Derek Walcott Lecture and read at the Nobel Laureate Festival.